We were flying back from Bangalore to Delhi today. When the flight started boarding on time at Bangalore we assumed that the fog was bearable at Delhi. My daughter and I slept through most of the flight. I didn’t even drink my customary tea on the Indigo flight. To put the record straight I do not like the packet mix tea they serve as it has added sugar in it but then tea is tea is tea!

Delhi Airport Fog

As soon as my daughter started stirring and began asking for food they announced the descent to Delhi. So I told her the plane was about to land and we would go home soon. She got distracted. She was also sitting on the window seat, my window seat!

You know how descents are, fasten seat belt, trays folded, seat upright, window shades open and the like. While descending came a time when I could hardly even see the wings of the plane! Suddenly the plane started making a noise that is not typical of landing. And my husband pointed out we were gaining height fast. I remarked, “and not a sound from the cockpit.” But I was wrong, soon the first officer made an announcement that we had a missed approach to Delhi as they could not see the runway lights. He said it was a safe procedure and he would get back to us with more information.

My daughter started complaining of ear ache and a lot of my time went in soothing her. The second announcement was that we were circling 40 kilometers east of Delhi and would make another approach soon and if they saw the runway lights they would land the plane. I was wondering if the plane would land at Jaipur or Mumbai eventually, if it landed at all!

On the second approach some of us tried to laugh it off, some prayed. I could once again for a while not see the plane wings but a few seconds later I could see the ground and that we were about to land! The plane did land safely on the second attempt. While disembarking I told the cabin crew to say a big thank you to the captain for landing us safely.

Aha Missed Approaches! Being an Air Traffic Controller, I have controlled so many of them..but never experienced on a plane..and regarding the safety..its an absolutely safe procedure to avoid any last moment problem during landing because of weather, machine or human error.

I have been reading some of these recent stories about the heavy fog – when you read a blog post it is much more personal AND scary! Glad you all landed safe, my closest story for India flight-fright is getting diverted to Montreal on the way to Bombay because of a snow storm 🙂

You made me remember my own “Fog Flying Horror Story” on the 24th of Dec, 2006. I was supposed to land in Delhi at around 8:30 pm on that Christmas Eve, but ended up landing the next day at 11:40 am;thanks to the Jet Airways flight flying all the way back to Kolkata!

I am Mridula Dwivedi, I love to travel! I started my travel blog in 2005. I have been going places since! For more details do check out my media kit! In another life I did a Ph.D. from IIT Kanpur. I was a professor when I quit my job in 2015.